Medical Joke

What is sham acupuncture? It is an acupuncture treatment that does not stimulate known acupuncture points.

What is real acupuncture? In this new acupuncture study published in a real medical journal:
A randomized trial comparing acupuncture, simulated acupuncture, and usual care for chronic low back pain [Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009 May 11];
simulated acupuncture using toothpicks that did not penetrate the skin was just as effective as real acupuncture.

Simulated acupuncture could be considered to be sham needling but it is not sham acupuncture. Time.com is a little confused about this in Acupuncture for Bad Backs: Even Sham Therapy Works. But at least they included an image of a half naked Asian woman in their story.

Acupuncture Side Effect?

An advertisement fo Centraal Beheer insurance.

A bizarre commercial from Australia. I did not know one could find beavers in the land down under.

See more at ubykotex.com and check out the link What happens at the GP?

A 1949 TV commercial for Camel cigarettes

What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?

Related Links:

“The doctors’ choice is America’s choice”: the physician in US cigarette advertisements, 1930-1953.

One strategic response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising referring directly to physicians. As ad campaigns featuring physicians developed through the early 1950s, tobacco executives used the doctor image to assure the consumer that their respective brands were safe.

Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years’ observations on male British doctors.

Men born in 1900-1930 who smoked only cigarettes and continued smoking died on average about 10 years younger than lifelong non-smokers.

Stanford School of Medicine Tobacco Ads Exhibit

As terms like “smoker’s cough” and “coffin nails” (referring to cigarettes) began to appear in the popular vernacular, tobacco marketers recognized the need to counter this threat to their livelihood.